


Viva, May We All Burn

by I_See_The_Stars_15



Series: Secrets Kept Close, Feelings Pushed Away [9]
Category: Hermitcraft RPF
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Hero Complex, Kinda, Mycelium Resistance, No Dialogue, Post-War, Revolution, War, inner thoughts, you'll see - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:00:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26814031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_See_The_Stars_15/pseuds/I_See_The_Stars_15
Summary: Here's the thing: the Resistance lost.This isn't Grian's first time fighting back against authority, and each war ends with him feeling the same things and learning the same lessons. Why then does he keep fighting back?
Series: Secrets Kept Close, Feelings Pushed Away [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1775941
Comments: 5
Kudos: 62





	Viva, May We All Burn

**Author's Note:**

> "Down with the revolution boys...it was never meant to be."
> 
> ~Eret, Dream SMP (2020)

Here’s the thing: the Resistance lost.

Perhaps they were always destined to fail. Perhaps there was no use in fighting when even the leader knew they weren’t going to succeed. No matter how many people they managed to rally to their side, no matter how many resources they managed to collect, they were no match for the collective force of their mayor and their admin. Sure, they were able to reclaim some of the island before it was ultimately paved over again, but that wasn’t a win, at least not to Grian.

To Grian, it was obvious the Resistance was never meant to remain in one piece. The ConVex were too strong, the threat of pranks looming over them. Grian never dealt with the terrifying pair outside of the relatively tame ConCorp, and so many assumed he would underestimate them, would be foolish when dealing with them.

The end didn’t happen in a night, just as how the Resistance wasn’t formed in a day. Slowly, allies became enemies and bystanders, often changing sides to avoid the wrath of the Vex. There were a few who stayed by his side until the end, friends who decided to go down with him even when the outcome of it all became more and more obvious. Grian was thankful they stayed by his side, but he also hated them for it.

See, Grian wasn’t a fool. Stupid and clumsy he may be, but none of his acts were done without him thinking over them first. Sure, he never encountered the full force of the Vex before the Resistance, but he’s started more than enough wars to know that the worst thing you can do is think of yourself as higher than your opponent. He’s surprised the hermits seemed to forget who started the Civil War, or the War against Area 77, or Demise. Maybe they thought it was pure luck that he managed to win two out of three times. 

Of course, Grian didn’t consider any of those events to have ended in victory. He lost too much from them to be victories: resources, time, trust. He never started those games with the intent of winning. The Resistance was no different; he knew, from its conception, that his plan was never going to work. That’s just how it always goes. It only became all the more obvious this time around that the organization was crumbling beneath the members’ feet. The ones who stayed were the true fools in this scenario, and loyalty did nothing to remedy that. They saw the end and ran headfirst towards it for a cause that didn’t make much of an impact in the end.

They’re lucky though, Grian guesses. Lucky in a way he never was. This war has no lasting effects on their world. The hermits were too close to let a dispute over dirt be what tore them apart. Their leaders never punished them for fighting back, never threatened them, or pushed through with those threats for daring to speak up. If anything, they encouraged that freedom amongst themselves, and are happy to improve if the complaint wasn’t part of a bit.

To the hermits, each war was a game. To Grian, each game was a war. It was part of his nature just as much as pranking was, just as much as being an annoyance to everyone was. He always had to fight back, always had to speak up, always had to create chaos because he didn’t know what else to do.

He was always given no choice but to fight back. Each world he stepped into, each group he decided to get involved in, ended up being corrupt or mistreated. No one else was speaking up, no one else was allowed to speak up, not even him. He dared to anyway, fought back, and talked back even if the consequences ricocheted back at him with twice as much force. He thought, back then, that this was his way of taking back control when everyone wanted power over him. This was how he decided what he’ll do with his life.

Ironically, his need to fight soon spiraled into an urge he couldn’t fight. He felt compelled to battle, but he was never satisfied with one-on-one spars like some of the others. He had to drag others down with him, had to involve any other soul that dared try to touch his broken one. He was a black hole that drew all light in, wanting nothing more than to watch discord unfold before his eyes.

His causes are righteous ones, most of the time. Fighting against the flaws in the system should be a noble goal, but noble goals mean nothing when paired with him. He was just another fighter, another upstart trying to shake the foundations of the world for the sake of a make-believed justice no one truly believed in. 

It was why he was now at the place that started it all, the first headquarters in between the Barge and Decked Out. He sat alone at the table, not minding the cobwebs that clung to his sweater. On the board in front of him was the wall that held the faces of the first three who joined him, and the last three to leave.

Ren, Etho, and Impulse. Trailblazers whose fires were quickly put out. Fools who thought they were doing something good when they decided to stay. They worked hard when it started as the four of them and fought hard when it was the four of them against the world. They thought they were winning, thought they had the capacity to win. That was how revolutions worked in the stories after all: they fight back and win, underdogs saving the day. They didn’t know what Grian knew: those stories were fiction, written by the victors who wanted to see dissenters to know who to trample.

That's the thing with rebellion, the thing with the upstarts challenging the world: they're never meant to win. They can succeed and get what they want, but there is no such thing as winning against a broken system. In the end, only one thing is for sure with rebellion: society will end up just as broken from before.

From the rubble might come a new world, but that is destined to crumble. From the ashes might come new values, but that is destined to burn. From the remains of what was might come hope for what can be, but that is destined to fail just as the Resistance was destined to fail. Just as he was always meant to fall.

He saw it all firsthand, saw it every time he started something new, every time he dared to speak up or fight back. Hermitcraft may not have been as broken as the other worlds he stayed in, but that didn’t make it any different from them. It just meant the consequences were lighter, the burden not as heavy to carry. 

This was how it was always meant to end: a peace treaty held with guarded gazes, a promise not to do more and a promise to do just that. For now, the Resistance would stand down, but it did not mean the world would stop turning. It just meant he could once again begin the cycle of pretending as though each loss pained him when it gave him relief. It just meant now, perhaps, that he would feel no need to fight back and fracture the world even more.

Here's the thing: the Resistance lost, and maybe, just maybe, that was for the best.

**Author's Note:**

> Believe it or not, despite this fic I'm an adamant supporter of the Mycelium Resistance. Viva la revolution!
> 
> This idea may be done a lot already, but I couldn't resist writing about our favorite gremlin and angst dumpster. It's a bit on the shorter side, but I just had to write it. Thank you for reading! As always, I hope you enjoyed this!


End file.
